Line #13 Fridge/Castlevania


1	!Per wiki policy, Administrivia/SpoilersOff applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.
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3	!! Entries with their own pages:
4	* ''Fridge/CastlevaniaIISimonsQuest''
5	* ''Fridge/CastlevaniaIIIDraculasCurse''
6	* ''Fridge/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight''
7	* ''Fridge/Castlevania64''
8	* ''Fridge/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance''
9	* ''Fridge/CastlevaniaAriaOfSorrow''
10	* ''Fridge/CastlevaniaLamentOfInnocence''
11	* ''Fridge/CastlevaniaDawnOfSorrow''
12	* ''Fridge/CastlevaniaCurseOfDarkness''
13	* ''Fridge/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin''
14	* ''Fridge/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia''
15	* ''Fridge/CastlevaniaJudgment''
16	* ''Fridge/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair''
17	* ''Fridge/CastlevaniaLordsOfShadow''
18	* ''Fridge/CastlevaniaLordsOfShadowMirrorOfFate''
19	* ''Fridge/CastlevaniaLordsOfShadow2''
20	* ''Fridge/Castlevania2017''
21	* ''Fridge/CastlevaniaNocturne''
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23	!! The franchise in general:
24	[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]
25	* I always wondered how sealing Dracula's castle away would have killed him for good; the center of chaos reasoning was kind of "eh", but then it hit me — ''the center of chaos is the Crimson Stone from VideoGame/CastlevaniaLamentOfInnocence'', the stone that gave Dracula his power originally. The way the core "shatters" like a gem breaking seems to give credibility to this.
26	** This also explains how the "perfect replica" castle in ''Dawn of Sorrow'' was created; the cult just made a new Crimson Stone to be a new Chaos. (Which lends a whole new meaning to their grooming two Dracula candidates, since ''someone'' would eventually need to be sacrificed to power it.)
27	*** That explains why they needed to kill Soma first. Soma was going to be the sacrifice, like Walter was for the original Crimson Stone!
28	* Neat little thing that I noticed recently. In most ''Castlevania'' games, Death typically talks to you like you're scum or lower than dirt when compared to his master Dracula. Yet in ''Aria of Sorrow'', he's strangely quiet during your fight with him as Soma. Then again, why would he dare insult his longtime master and closest thing to a friend?
29	* I was wondering the other day about why the Whip's Memory in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin'' showed Richter Belmont in his ''Rondo of Blood'' attire, besides sprite recycling. Then I thought of something: between his two game appearances, ''Rondo of Blood'' was the only one where he was actually fighting Dracula and his hordes of darkness. He was brainwashed to lead Dracula's castle in ''Symphony of the Night'', so that would not reflect well on the Vampire Killer.
30	* The reason why the Belmonts weren't around in the 1800's? Because ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaResurrection'' was canceled.
31	* Have you ever questioned why the Holy Water subweapon created a trail of fire whenever you threw it on the ground? I did, and never really understood why until it just randomly hit me. Most, if not all, the battles take place in Castlevania, which is for all purposes an extension of Dracula himself. Holy Water in other media [[GoodHurtsEvil tends to cause evil creatures to burn on contact]]. Castlevania ''itself'' is an evil entity, which is why the flames arise.
32	** This makes extra sense in that it ''doesn't'' burst into flames in ''Simon's Quest''. Most of that game takes place far from the castle, and even when you get near it, the castle is arguably dead anyways.
33	** This loops into straight-up FridgeLogic when one considers that there are a few other games where a good chunk of the action takes place in locations other than Castlevania, and the holy water still bursts into flames there. For a few of these games, it either still makes sense (the castle in ''Dawn of Sorrow'' isn't Castlevania itself, but it's a replica designed to have similar properties; the painting locations in ''Portrait of Ruin'' ''technically'' aren't Castlevania, but they're still Brauner's creations and effectively extensions of ''his'' power, making them just as unholy as he is) or the Holy Water isn't available as a subweapon, so the FridgeLogic never comes up (''Order of Ecclesia'', where none of the playable characters use the traditional subweapons). But in ''Dracula[='=]s Curse'', ''Rondo of Blood'', ''Bloodlines'', and ''Curse of Darkness'', where some or even most of the action is in mundane locations, one has to wonder just why the holy water leaves flames on the ground. (Especially ''Bloodlines'', in which Castlevania is the very first stage and Dracula is still very much dead while the heroes are roaming around there; Castlevania is arguably just as "dead" in ''Bloodlines'' as it is in ''Simon[='=]s Quest''. At least Castlevania is the final third or latter half of the game in ''Dracula[='=]s Curse'' and the latter three-quarters to five-sixths of the game in ''Rondo of Blood'', and the last stage in ''Curse of Darkness'', and the main character of ''Curse of Darkness'', Hector, doesn't have access to the Holy Water — only the bonus character, Trevor, does — so the canonicity of Holy Water getting much use in that game (outside of Trevor's skirmishes with the Devil Forgemasters) is questionable anyways.)
34	** If you want a DoingInTheWizard explanation, the "Holy Water" is ''vodka'' and the Belmonts were the ones who invented Molotov Cocktails in the Castlevania universe.
35	* This piece of brilliance came to me when I looked at [[http://55.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxkaar52GY1qkih2oo1_1280.jpg this picture]] depicting just about all the playable characters in ''Castlevania'' games (except for some really obscure unlockable characters). At first, I thought "This is cool, but why is Leon holding Sara? She was never playable." Then I remembered that in ''Lament of Innocence'', Sara bound her soul to the Whip of Alchemy, turning it into the Vampire Killer. So, in effect, she has been kind of playable in almost every game in the series! And, of course, Leon holds her just as every other Belmont to wield the whip has. Kudos to the artist for a nice bit of symbolism there.
36	* Fans were concerned when Sypha seemed to have been DummiedOut of the Pachislot game in favor of Angela. Then a possible explanation hit me: Sypha stayed behind because she was pregnant.
37	* As noted on [[VampireVords that page]], Dracula never speaks with the stereotypical Hungarian/Romanian vampire accent. Why? Maybe it's because [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaLamentOfInnocence this Dracula was never from either of those countries to begin with…]]
38	* In ''Order of Ecclesia'', Dracula breaks the tradition of having [[NumberOfTheBeast 6666]] HP, instead having ''9999''. 9999 is just 6666 turned upside down.
39	* At the start of ''Aria'', Arikado tells Soma that if anyone stays in the castle for too long, they'll die. This seems like a lie, in that you can TakeYourTime as much as you want… but in the Classicvanias, staying too long in one place will kill you because [[TimedMission the timer runs out]].
40	* If Eric Lecarde, the son of Adrian "Alucard" Tepes and Maria Renard, passes as Spanish, and "Cruz" is a Spanish surname… is Soma Cruz descended from himself?
41	** Eric can't be Maria's son, since he was born in 1892, when she'd be 112. But it's still possible for Eric to be Alucard and Maria's descendant, and for Soma to be Eric's descendant in turn.
42	* Thanks to the Netflix series shedding light on where the Belmont clan originated, and the origin of Trevor's name from a Welshman who accompanied Leon ([[SpellMyNameWithAnS Trefor with an "F"]]), it is possible to pinpoint where Trevor's descendants got their names from:
43	** Christopher: Named after Trevor's middle name, also Christopher.
44	** Soleiyu[=/=]Soleil: Named after the French word for "sun," as part of the French origins of the clan.
45	** Simon: Also taken from French heritage, where it is normally pronounced as "Símon".
46	** Juste: See above, this time with the French term for "justice".
47	** Richter: Due to the Belmonts becoming more well-known in Wallachia than in their original France, Germanic names began to pop up, with Richter's being the most notable, being the German word for "Judge". This could also work as a shout-out to the German narration of ''Rondo of Blood''.
48	** Julius: This is due to the fact that he was the man that destroyed Dracula on the day that was prophesized by Nostradamus, July 7th, 1999, "Julius" being the root word for "July".
49	* There is a theory that Elizabeth, Lisa, and Mina are the same person, reincarnated over and over. Someone pointed out that Elizabeth died of illness, so she came back as Lisa the doctor. Lisa died because of religious fanaticism, and came back as Mina the miko.
50	* People joke about how inappropriate the whip is as a weapon, except it makes a lot of sense in the context. When you're battling creatures that can fly above you, or stand shorter than you, or tower above you, you need a weapon that can adapt to all of them. A sword works for someone of human-like size and build facing you, but for a Medusa Head or a bat? You need something that can go up in the air too. More than that, you need it to be one weapon that fits all situations, since you may not have time to keep changing between different weapons... so the whip makes a lot of sense. It can attack directly in front of you, or up in the air, or below you, or even behind you. All things considered, the whip is the ''only'' weapon that a Belmont (or other) should be carrying into battle with Dracula's ridiculously-diverse army of supernatural beasts, critters, vagabonds, monsters, and God knows what else.
51	** It also doubles as a good strategic move generally. Even if you've never used a sword, people know how they work. You hold it straight to block an attack and lunge with it to stab your enemy. Any idiot with a sword can still win a fight. Same goes for bows, hammers, axes, and any other weapons you'd typically see in the various time-periods of the series. But a ''whip?'' That's not something people would typically encounter in combat. People would pause, unsure of how to defend themselves from it. If the person wielding it dropped it and their enemy picked it up, they wouldn't know how to use it right away. Magic or no magic, and whether it's used against mortals or demonic creatures, the whip is just a smart choice to bring to a fight.
52	** There's also the symbolism of using a holy whip (used in the Passion of the Christ and by penitents to self-flagellate) against creatures of evil.
53	* ''Symphony of the Night'' is the first Castlevania game to make the Castle a giant explorable entity instead of stages that must be completed in a time limit. Why is it like this? Beyond development reasons, it's said that staying too long inside the Castle can kill you, which was probably represented by the time limit. Alucard, a natural child of the night, would not be affected by the Castle's malignant aura and thus would be able to explore it thoroughly instead of the time limited Belmonts and other humans in the castle! As to why Richter and Maria don't seem affected by the Castle in-game (in Alucard's story or their own modes), it's worth noting that Dracula isn't resurrected yet, and as such the Castle can't exert as much of its effects on humans compared to when he was fully resurrected like in almost all of the previous games. And this effect or reasons why there's no longer a time limit can be seen in other games as well.
54	** Even in ''Rondo of Blood'', the game taking place directly before ''Symphony'', Richter (along with Maria if rescued) is given the luxury of no time limit in-game to explore each stage as thoroughly as can be done. Why is this so, however, when Dracula is fully resurrected and has had enough time to consolidate his powers? Well, remember the maidens that were kidnapped, kick-starting the plot of the game to begin with? Since all the maidens happened to be human, and odds were very good that Dracula's plans needed them alive, it would make sense that he, being the master of the Castle, would intentionally suppress the malignant aura to the point that the maidens would not die simply from spending too long in their respective confines, even knowing that this would mean allowing Richter (along with Maria if rescued) the same luxury.
55	** ''Lament of Innocence'' is something of a truly unique outlier in the franchise, at least in regards to a lack of a time limit as a whole, outside of a small handful of occasions where failing the time limit doesn't even ''cause'' the player character to die. However, considering just how it was that Dracula came to be the big threat that he is to begin with, one would not be faulted for supposing that Walter Bernhard, the primary antagonist of the game, likely had similar powers in possession. As to why he doesn't bring them into play here? Well, remember what was said at the introduction of the game, about how he always started his games of cat and mouse with hunters by kidnapping their closest, most treasured people? Given how his motivation for doing this is basically alleviating the boredom that comes with immortality, and how ''Lament of Innocence's'' story plays out, chances are, allowing the kidnapped people to die from simply spending too much time in the castle probably made the games less... fun for him.
56	** In ''Curse of Darkness'', ''Harmony of Dissonance'', and ''Portrait of Ruin'', the Castle was revived, but Dracula remained dead until the end of the games, hence how the various protagonists could enter the Castle without any time limits.
57	** In ''Order of Ecclesia'' and ''Circle of the Moon'', Dracula was only freshly resurrected and hasn't had time to consolidate his power. Furthermore, in Shanoa's case, she hosted the Dominus Glyphs, symbols of Dracula's power, which may have helped protect her from the Castle's effects.
58	** In ''Castlevania 64'' and ''Legacy of Darkness'', Dracula is fully resurrected in both games, but the scenario differs depending on the character. In Cornell's story, he, like Alucard, is a child of the Night as a Werewolf, so he naturally wouldn't be affected by the Castle's effects. For Reinhart, Carrie, and Henry, Dracula is posing as Malus. Not only is he hiding as a child, but also suppressing his full power, which he unleashes at the end of the game (assuming Vincent wasn't turned into a Vampire). The Castle in turn is suppressed and unable to unleash its full abilities.
59	** In ''Aria of Sorrow'', Dracula is technically alive as Soma Cruz, but given he's reincarnated as a human instead of a vampire and lost all of his powers and memories, the Castle likewise lacks any effects on the mortals there. Though after Soma faces Graham and awakens to his true identity, the Castle's ability to kill mortals starts activating again, as seen when you chat with Mina over how she's feeling and she has worse and worse symptoms, like her body flailing on its own, massive headaches, and fainting.
60	* Why Death is fought in the Clock Tower area - or a similar themed area - in practically every game in the series? To humans, death and time are inevitabilities. Also, Death's scythe is associated with Roman god Saturn (Saturnus), deity of time and harvest, whose counterpart was Greek Cronus. The latter, however, has been confused with ''another'' deity named ''Khronos'', the one that is ''truly'' the personification of time in Greek mythology.
61	** Given that St. Germain was fucking around in ''Curse of Darkness'' and Death was only able to take him off guard by waiting for him at a clock tower, it's also possible that Death is squatting there to prevent St. Germain from showing up.
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63	[[AC:FridgeHorror]]
64	* Both the games ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaRondoOfBlood'' and ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaChronicles'' have a boss fight against a werewolf who starts out human, but transforms to start the battle. What is sad is that the wolf-people may have had no control over their transformations and they appear to die after their transformations. How can we be sure that the werewolves are aware of Dracula's influence over them? For all we know, they could be brainwashed into changing into their wolf forms and get killed by the Belmonts [[HeelFaceDoorSlam without a chance at redemption for their actions!]]

Context Fridge / Castlevania